Cisco VP of AI Barak Turovsky on LLM Use Cases and IT Automation Benefits

For Barak Turovsky, magic has always lurked within innovation, especially when interacting with artificial intelligence. Without visionaries, many critical advances within technology that enhance our daily lives may not have been approached.

When we first connected a little over a year ago, Turovsky had recently left his decade-long tenure as the director of product for Google Languages AI, where he helped foster an environment that supported advancements in AI that once seemed far-fetched. Applying progressive AI and machine learning technologies helped him deliver user experiences that could only be described as “magical,” he says. This work helped fuel Google Search, Translate, Ads, Cloud, and more.

“My career started over 25 years ago with what we currently call AI, but obviously at that time, it was simply known as machine learning. I cynically love that I worked on ‘esoteric’ topics like large language models, long before they became the hottest thing on Earth.”

Prior to that promotion, he served as head of product for Google’s mobile commerce team where he led, developed, and launched Google Pay (formerly Google Wallet) in 2011.

“At that time, I believe mobile payments were in their infancy. Obviously, the concept revolutionized retail, and now we see Apple Pay and Google Pay. We equipped every mobile device user with the ability to load their payment methods to seamlessly pay, apply coupons, and loyalty cards to retail transactions. It was such a fun project that got so much traction, which I’m very happy to see. We introduced this product to over 1 billion Android and Apple users, and AI is the next thing that will impact our daily lives along with automation.”

Related:[Free Virtual Event] Strategies for Maximizing IT Automation

Turovsky is one of our featured keynote speakers for our live “Strategies for Maximizing IT Automation” virtual event. The event launches on Thursday, March 28, presented by InformationWeek and ITPro Today. He provided us with some clarity in a video interview:

Experiences with Microsoft, PayPal, Google, and more have catapulted Barak to his current role at Cisco as VP of AI, where he leads AI for one of its business units. Being back in the magical world of IT, networking, and security, Barak is energized to create a new AI product that supports IT automation.

“In many cases, my work focused on innovative technologies, where I was basically doing this zero-to-one experience even before AI. At PayPal for example, I was one of the first product leads to scale from zero in payment volume to nearly $1 billion in payment volume within two years. I think part of my claim to fame was that I always worked on innovative technology that impact our lives, and that is a big reason why I’ve ended up at Cisco.”

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